by Tracy Deonn
I pause. My mother is gone, but she’d never have chosen to leave me, or run the risk of us being parted. That’s my own truth, and one I hadn’t considered.
I put back the folder in my hand and move on to another. “Well, if the two of you are so similar, why does he hate you so much? I know how he feels about Merlins in general, but you were a child when his mother was mesmered. You had nothing to do with it.”
Sel grabs a thick folder and drops down to the floor with it, speaking without looking up. “When I was young, my mother was killed by an uchel while on a mission. After that, my human father fell into a liquor bottle and never came out.”
I blink, stunned at both the matter-of-fact tone of his story and how familiar that tone sounds. Sometimes, you say the awful thing quickly and without taking a breath because lingering is too painful.
If an uchel killed Sel’s mother, then no wonder he’d threatened to murder me. Frankly, I’m surprised at his restraint.
“The Regents moved me to a school for Merlins in the mountains, but when I was Oathed to Nicholas, his father took me in. While my own parents were absent, Davis was kind and generous. Not long after I showed up, Nicholas began to see his father’s praise and attention as a zero-sum game. And since I was obedient, I was getting those things.” He shrugs. “Over time, jealousy became anger, anger became resentment.”
I mull this over for a moment. “For both of you?”
Sel exhales and looks at me, thinking. “Perhaps.”
We sit silently for a moment before he continues, his voice heavy with memory. “I thought Nicholas was amazing. He was everything I wasn’t: bright, open, popular. Heroic. He made it all look so easy. Still does. I wanted to be close to that.” He sighs softly. “Probably why I fell in love with him.”
Oh.
“I didn’t realize. You—does he—”
“I was thirteen. I’m well over it.” Sel lets out a loose, wry chuckle, head still bent over a filing cabinet. “And everyone falls in love with Nicholas, Bree—it’s part of his insufferable charm.”
I want to know more, despite the complicated feelings this conversation is giving me, and Sel answers before I can ask.
“There’s so much baggage between Nicholas and me; there was never going to be room enough for anything else to grow.” Sel gives the paperwork in his hands a tight scowl. “When I think about that crush now, I remember how much of my life I sacrificed to protect a spoiled brat who didn’t even want his crown—and feel entirely grateful I moved on to more mature people.”
“Like Tor?” I reply without thinking.
Sel turns to me, raises a brow. “Among others.”
A confusing mixture of jealousy and curiosity and want swirls in my stomach.
Sel turns back to his work. “Any more personal questions or shall we get back to looking for a rogue, murderous mage?”
I open my mouth to shoot back another retort when he goes completely stiff. “What?”
“This is it,” he whispers, pulling a thick green hanging folder stuffed with paper out of the cabinet. “Stamped confidential with the Regents’ seal. ‘Documentation and affidavits about a spate of demon attacks on campus.’ Dated twenty-five years ago. Let’s go.”
* * *
The trip back to the Lodge goes just as quickly, but this time I’m on Sel’s back as he leaps up to the second-floor trellis, then yanks on a ledge to propel us the rest of the way to his open window.
Once we’re inside, he drops down on the floor and spreads the folder open, laying out stacks of paper in a row. His casual way of sitting and the deliberate movements of his hands catch me off guard, but then I remember that even though Sel is a Kingsmage, he’s still an eighteen-year-old junior in college. He has to study and do homework and write papers just like the rest of us.
Someone slams a door down the hall, and I hear voices. It’s almost dawn.
I kneel down across from him. This is it, I think. This is the moment when I find out what happened to my mother, and why. And who is responsible. I reach for the top stack of papers with a shaking hand, but Sel has already found what we need: a slightly yellowed affidavit, three pages long and handwritten in a formal script.
He looks up at me with a question in his eyes. I nod, and Sel reads aloud:
“April 9th, 1995
Confidential and Classified
Attn: Honored Lieges and Mage Seneschals of the High Council of Regents of the Order of the Round Table
I will begin this affidavit without equivocation of any kind. The Southern Chapter of the Order of the Round Table has failed in its duties. As requested, this personal report details in linear fashion and from my perspective the events that transpired starting last week and up to today. I write this with the understanding that the facts herein will be filed for the record in the Order archives.
On Friday, March 31, our Merlin alerted the Scions of Gawain and Bors to a partially materialized sarff uffern. The two Scions successfully dispatched the serpent, as recorded in our logs, and we assumed we would have respite from another crossing.
Four days later, unbeknownst to us, a large Gate opened near the mouth of ogof y ddraig. A dozen partially materialized cŵn uffern emerged. Within minutes, our Merlin alerted us to their presence, and we dispatched all six Scions, each with a well-trained Squire, and our Merlin. We were certain we were capable of destroying the creatures; our hubris was our mistake.
Before we arrived, six Unanedig had already been eviscerated. The Cysgodanedig—the Shadowborn—were coordinated, and split up into three groups when they detected us, affording them time to grow fully corporeal. In the course of chasing these three groups, eight more Unanedig were killed. In all cases, we dispatched the beasts and sent their bodies to dust, but could not do so with discretion. We worked with the Vassal network on campus and off to hide the true nature of the deaths and framed the losses as an accident due to a gas explosion. All families have been paid a settlement from Order coffers via the University legal department.
There were fifteen surviving Unanedig witnesses. Our Merlin mesmered them with false memories, and we held them here at the Lodge, but as you know, mesmered memories must be of equal weight to the originals. The shock and graphic nature of these attacks prevented the mesmer from taking hold. Too late, we realized we needed the Regents’ assistance.
With the help of the Regents’ attending Merlins, the witnesses were successfully mesmered and released. Each witness has a file, attached here, with further details regarding their management.
As tragic as this account is, I’m afraid that I must add further unsavory details to complete the record. The Regents members and Merlins, in their wisdom and due right, proceeded immediately with an investigation into the incident, its origins, and the chapter’s responses. Our actions and failings as described here were recorded by the committee. However, in the course of the subsequent investigation, new information has come to light and devastated our chapter.
It was discovered that our Merlin and Kingsmage, Na—”
Sel stops reading abruptly, his face stricken.
“What is it?”
His eyes scan the letter again, darting back and forth as the blood drains from his face.
“Sel? Selwyn?”
I reach for the paper, and he doesn’t resist when I slip it from his slack fingers. The mixture of horror and shock contorting his face, marring his beautiful, precise features, sends a cold blade into my heart.
“Read it.” His usually sonorous voice scrapes the quiet of the room.
“Maybe—”
“Read it, Bree,” he repeats, a fierce command threaded through his words.
I do. I read the story of his mother.
“It was discovered that our Merlin and Kingsmage, Natasia Kane, opened the Gates herself using an arcane ritual and Cysgodanedig blood she procured specifically because of its strength and ability to open Gates of that size. Kingsmage Kane gave no reason for her abominable behavior and d
enied the investigation’s findings at every turn. In hindsight, perhaps we should have considered the possibility of Natasia’s involvement the moment the first Gate was found; it is well documented that the more power Merlins command, the more they succumb to their unnatural, demonic nature. Natasia is the product of careful Merlin bloodline curation, and she’s the most powerful sorceress in a generation. But we were swayed by her gifts and did not expect her corruption to manifest so early. In the weeks leading up to the attack, Natasia had been consumed by an obsession with the Cysgodanedig. She’d been so certain that a goruchel had crossed over that she became paranoid, unreasonable, even suspicious of our own chapter members.
The usual sentence for treason of this magnitude and intentional exposure resulting in death(s) is forcible elimination. In truth, even the Regents are not certain that elimination is possible due to Natasia’s unusually strong affinity for aether. As such, Natasia has been secured in one of the Regents’ most heavily warded prisons.
Regent Ross has informed me that the loss of her bloodline would be a blow to our efforts against the Cysgodanedig, so in the event that her stability returns under rehabilitation, the Regents will consider offering temporary probation so that she may bear an heir. Any child she produces will need to be Oathed early and raised under close supervision.
On a personal note, I would like to state for the record that I have known Natasia most of my life. I am not sure what it says that I, her charge, did not sense her intentions. Perhaps she hid them from me to protect me as best she could. I offer this possibility and perspective in hopes that it will support her fair treatment while in Order custody.
The Regents requested that I write this report so that it may serve as a reminder to others of the Line. They have asked me to state for the record that while the Merlins’ aether abilities hold the keys to our Order’s mission, their cambion blood affliction requires constant vigilance.
Merlin Isaac Sorenson has agreed to take on our open Kingsmage post. The Regents have advised that all records of Natasia Kane be expunged. They have also agreed, by our request, that the other chapters remain ignorant of the culprit behind these incidents, lest the report generate strife and distrust within our Order.
Yours in the Lines,
Martin Davis, Scion of Arthur
Addendum I: 5 years from incident
Natasia Kane has exhibited several years of stability. She will be released under probation and monitoring.
Addendum II: 12 years from incident
Natasia Kane has exhibited a relapse of blood symptoms. The High Council of Regents has taken action to remove her from service and return her to containment. Her young son will be admitted to a residential Merlin academy in Asheville, North Carolina, and monitored by the Masters on faculty. There is some hope that, under their close supervision, he can be groomed as the next Kingsmage for the Line of Arthur, and bonded to my own son, Nicholas.”
I look up to see Sel clenching and unclenching his fists where they rest on his knees. His breath is a rattling, choking sound, like a man drowning on land.
Of all the horrible, possible truths, this is one I could have never, ever imagined.
39
I’D NEVER CONSIDERED that the loss of someone else’s mother would be so connected to losing my own. Or that that loss would go hand in hand with death, destruction, and a horrifying fate. Nick’s mother, Sel’s, mine. How many mothers has the Order taken?
I want to say something, offer something to Sel, but the tension in his body and the thunder building in his unseeing gaze are all screaming at me to run. Run away before the bomb goes off, before the building explodes.
Suddenly, Sel is on his feet. He paces to the end of the room, the back of his hand pressed hard against his mouth like he doesn’t trust what could come out of himself. It takes everything in me to stay seated when he kicks his closet door and the wood splinters into a boot-shaped hole.
I realize then that I’m watching grief like mine come crashing down on Sel, all at once. The sudden, sharp, all-consuming pain of loss is tearing into him right in front of me. I remember how that felt. I remember how much it hurts. The pages fall from my hand.
I don’t remember standing up. I don’t remember walking to him. I just know that my arm is around his middle. His entire body turns to stone as soon as I touch him, and his smoke-and-whiskey scent swirls around us, heavy and burning, but I don’t let go. “I’m sorry,” I whisper into his spine. He doesn’t answer, but his muscles release the tiniest fraction. I wonder how long it’s been since someone touched him. We stay like that until his breathing slows.
When he finally speaks, his voice is pitched low. “You called me a monster once.”
My arm drops and I pull away, my voice colored with despair. “I was angry. I—I didn’t mean that.”
He turns, and his red-rimmed eyes sweep across my features. After a moment, a shadow crosses his face, and his mouth folds into a small, rueful smile, like he wants to admonish me and call me a liar. I look for tears, but he hasn’t shed them. His eyes take on a faraway, haunted expression. “Maybe you were right. It looks like I came from one.”
I’ve never heard Sel speak this way. So dazed, like he’s not really here in the room with me at all. I want to comfort him, but it feels like it’s not my place to offer comfort in the face of his family history. And yet I’m the reason he knows that history in the first place. I’m the reason he’s standing there, hollow and fractured.
The guilt is enough to choke me.
“ ‘So that she may bear an heir…,’ ” he whispers, his eyes turned inward. I flinch at the cold language. The hope and expectation that his mother would produce a child—a weapon—for the Order fills me with nauseous horror.
He shudders, and his eyelashes flutter, as if he’s just remembered that I’m standing in front of him. He inhales deeply through his nose and looks over my shoulder at the pile of paperwork behind me. When he exhales, the cold, calculating, distant Sel is back, his analysis curt. “It appears I was lied to, likely for my protection. Which means there was no uchel, no mission. They released her for a time and took her away when she relapsed. I suppose I was too young to see that she was losing herself, or too admiring of her abilities…”
Watching him Holmes his way through his own devastation is almost more than I can take. I open my mouth, but he cuts me off.
“At any rate, she’s alive.” His voice breaks on the revelation. Then he sucks in another breath. “But locked away, has been for years, so she’s not our culprit. And, it seems, I inherited her penchant for paranoia, so perhaps there is no mole at all and never was. As for your quest, your mother may be one of the witnesses.”
I’d already thought of that, of course, but… “Sel—”
He brushes past me. “We should find out what happened to your mother,” he says flatly. He crouches down and pushes the affidavit aside, flipping through the file’s other papers.
I kneel beside him and place a hand on his forearm, ignoring the small sizzle between our skin. He freezes without looking at me, muscles hard beneath my fingers. “Sel.”
His voice drops into a register meant to scare and intimidate. “Don’t.” But I hear the restrained desperation in his voice. A pause. Then, quietly: “Please.”
I recognize that sound. It’s the sound of holding on to a cliff by the edge of your nails. The sound of barely containing a pain so immense that to look at it, to raise your own flesh and examine what’s beneath, is to risk falling into a darkness you know you’ll never escape.
It hits me then, that I’d come all this way for my mother and for the truth, but the pain of existing without her, the deep searing wound in my own chest, hasn’t gotten any better. It has only changed shape.
Wordlessly, I slip my hand from his arm. His shoulders sag, as if he’s just released a heavy weight, and he reaches for the papers again.
“Here.” He taps a stack of papers clipped together. “These are the witn
esses who were mesmered. All students. Looks like alphabetical order.”
The first few witnesses in my pile are all white. Psychology student. Football player. Theater kid. Then I flip the page and everything stops when I see her face.
Sel notices my shaking hands. “Did you find her?”
The words don’t come because there are no words.
Her student picture must have been taken when she’d just arrived to campus as an undergraduate, because her features are relaxed and bright with the promise of adventure. The creases at her cheeks and the edges of her eyes, the ones from laughter and time, have yet to form. Her sharp brown eyes stare at the camera as if challenging it in a contest she knew she’d win. Hair permed straight and curled at the ends. Nothing like the short, cropped coils she’d adopted when I was ten.
“I’d almost forgotten what she looked like,” I whisper.
Sel’s voice is gentle. “What does the file say?”
I release a wavering breath and flip to the one-page summary. “ ‘Witness Eleven. Faye Ayeola Carter, age nineteen. Sophomore. Biology major, chemistry minor.’ ”
Sel lets out a low whistle. “Bio major, chem minor? That sounds painful.”
I hear the quiet pride in my own voice. “That’s a scientist.”
“What else does it say?”
I keep reading. “ ‘The Scion of Owain and Squire Harris found Ms. Carter and two other Onceborns (see file names Mitchell and Howard) near the ogof y… ddraig’? What is that?”
“Ogov uh thrah-eeg,” he corrects my pronunciation. “The Welsh ‘dd’ is the soft ‘th’ in ‘leather.’ It means ‘cave of the dragon.’ The cave is at the center of the tunnel network. Keep reading.”
“ ‘… near the ogof y ddraig, cornered by a hound. Once the creature was killed, the three Onceborns were taken into custody—’ ”
Sel sighs in frustration. “I’m sure they came willingly, too, after the shock of seeing a full-corp hellhound. Probably had to knock them out first.” I glare at him, and he shrugs. “It’s protocol.”